


A Learning Curve

by a_spicy_draft



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Character Spoilers, Cuddling, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), First Time Sex, Flirting, Humor, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Mag101 spoilers, Non-Human Genitalia, Sexual Humor, The Magnus Archives but they can say fuck, Tim is definitely more vanilla than I anticipated, impossible geometry, negotiation and consent, possible budding romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:15:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22396939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_spicy_draft/pseuds/a_spicy_draft
Summary: “My nature is not physical, Tim,” said Michael. “I do not know pleasure or pain. I am aware only of their existence, and of people’s fears regarding them. I know…aboutthe physical world enough to have this… body. But the nature of physical reality itself, how to experience it directly, I cannot know alone. That is why I want your help.”“This has got to be the weirdest way I’ve ever been propositioned,” muttered Tim. “Top five, at least."
Relationships: Michael/Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 116
Collections: Rusty Kink





	1. A Rare Alignment of Circumstances

**Author's Note:**

> From this Rusty Kink prompt: https://rusty-kink.dreamwidth.org/1380.html?thread=288868#cmt288868

Tim raised his head when heard the creak. “Somebody really needs to grease the hinges on that yellow door,” he thought to himself; it had creaked for as long he could remember. A set of long, blade-like fingers wrapped themselves around the door and pushed it open slowly, revealing a man who was too tall, with curls that were too yellow. He would have been handsome, if he didn’t blur in a way reminiscent of wearing eyeglasses with too strong a prescription. The distorted man smiled at Tim, and only then did he remember that there had never been a yellow door in the middle of the Archives. 

“God damn it,” Tim grumbled. “What do you want?” The creature he knew as Michael regarded him quizzically.

“Not the Archivist,” it said.

“Oh,” said Tim. “If you’re looking for Jon, he’s not here. He’s off god-knows-where, doing god-knows-what spooky fuckery.”

“No…” said Michael. “I am here for you, Not-The-Archivist.” Tim grimaced at that form of address.

“I have a name, you know.”

“Oh? And what is your name?”

“It’s—” Tim cast his mind about, nervously. “It’s Abraham.” He fell back on his old joke nickname and hoped he sounded confident enough, but Michael merely giggled.

“No, it is not. Abraham Stoker is a real name, but it is not yours. I have heard what the others in the Archives call you, and it is not that. But fear not, Not-The-Archivist. My power is not in knowing or control. It is in deception. Names, the concept of a self, the notion of accurately labeling one, these things are… of little use to me. But,” Michael took a long stride towards Tim, “you are uncomfortable when I call you Not-The-Archivist. So, I should call you…?”

“Tim. And you’re Michael.” 

The Distortion laughed again.

“ _Am?_ I do not know. I doubt even anybody in the Archives could answer that. But it is something to call me.”

“Fine. Michael, you still haven’t answered my first question. What do you want?”

“You do not Compel as the Archivist does,” said Michael, drawing ever nearer. “What I want… is… to understand. I have seen you, Tim Not-The-Archivist, and you are very different than he is.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Tim. “Understand what?”

All that separated him from this distorted figure was one measly office table, which Michael towered over, bearing down on Tim. Its curls seemed to reach out in every direction conceivable—and even some that weren’t—touching Tim, caressing him, drawing him away from himself. He sat upright in his chair, determined to hold his ground.

“Understand… you,” Michael continued. “What you do. And understand… myself. Part of me was once of your ilk, a Michael who searched for answers, longed to know. And there were… other things that Michael longed for, in his memory and future. I feel it. I remember desires that are not mine, but I do not understand, and the feeling compounds, as is my nature. But you, Not-The-Archivist, you do what he does not want and what she denied her want of and what Michael wanted but did not always have. And so, what I want… is to do what I remember but do not know. Michael, before he was me, was many things, and so I am… curious.”

Tim shook his head. He rubbed his temples and squinted at the creature craning over him. It didn’t help.

“I’m sorry, I’m not following,” he said. “You want to use the Archives for research?”

“No,” said Michael. “You. Not-The-Archivist. Tim. You do the things that Michael wanted and I remember. You bring companions to your home and undo them without lies or corridors.” At this point, Michael was leaning so far forward that its nose, if it had had a defined boundary, would have been pressed against Tim’s. “You know them, but it is not the Knowing that is done here. They… enjoy it. You enjoy it. I have seen you and your companions in your home. It is wanted. What Michael wanted. What… I want.”

“You… you’re talking about sex,” said Tim. Michael smiled, timidly at first, but the grin quickly grew to encompass more space than the face occupied. Then, it reached out and grabbed Tim by the shoulders, its knife-like fingertips ever so slightly grazing the back of his neck. 

“Yes!” The Distortion was positively gleeful. “I want sex. Michael wanted it many times, but I believe just once will be enough for my needs. Thank you, Tim.”

“Now, wait just a minute,” said Tim. “You can’t just have sex with me. I haven’t agreed to this.”

“But you will.”

“Well, isn’t someone confident? Look, I get that you’re tall with luscious hair, but I’m not going to fuck a monster. No offense,” Tim backtracked, realizing that it was probably best to be diplomatic with a horny eldritch horror with knives for hands. “But I only have sex with humans.”

“Why?”

“Because I know how to have sex with humans. And I know how they have sex with me.”

“Because you’ve had sex with them before.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t know how to have sex… with monsters.”

“Correct.”

“But you want to.” 

“I—” Tim stopped. Did he want to? He looked at Michael, who smirked at him.

“I know the Beholding, Tim Not-The-Archivist.”

“Please stop calling me that.”

“It drew you to it because of who you are. You want to know. And I am curious too. This is… a rare alignment of circumstances. An opportunity to know, to learn, to teach, to… satisfy.” Michael gestured at the door that had just appeared beside him. “Shall we start now?”

Tim considered all of this. On the one hand, sleeping with a fear monster was a textbook example of a bad idea and would almost certainly damn him in some way. On the other hand, he was already bound to the Institute, so how much more damned could he get? It had been a while since he’d slept with anybody, and here was a… somebody with all the charm of an ingenue but who could clearly give enthusiastic, unabashed consent. Plus, he had to admit, those fingers were intriguing. Tim glanced nervously at the door.

“How about I stop on the way home to pick up a bottle of wine, and you meet me there?”


	2. The Mechanics Of It All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm drunk, and I decided to split up the long sex chapter into two. Hopefully by the time it's all done all the chapters will be of comparable length.

Tim poured two glasses of wine and handed one to Michael. Mostly as a formality. He wasn’t sure why, but conversation seemed easier when one had a glass of something to hold.

“So, what do you know about sex?” he asked the Distortion sitting next to him on his sofa. He was still a little unsure of his decision and wanted to make sure they both knew what they were getting themselves into.

“Of the beings that want it, it is a want that appears and consumes them in the most irregular ways,” Michael recited. “Sometimes it is born of something else that has been noticed, and sometimes it appears for no reason at all. Doing nothing may vanish the want, or it may fortify it. And sometimes the want is wanted and sometimes it is unwanted.” The Distortion beamed, clearly proud of itself.

“Uh,” Tim sipped his wine. “Well, I can’t speak for all beings, but in my own experience, I guess that checks out. What I meant to say was, what do you know about sex physically?”

Michael said nothing.

“I mean, like, the mechanics of it all. How the bodies work.”

Michael brought the wine glass it was holding to its lips, and the wine seemed to pixelate and vanish.

“Bodies…?”

“Like, how certain parts fit together. Or the nerve endings and stuff. You know, physical pleasure.”

Michael sighed.

“My nature is not physical, Tim,” it said. “I do not know pleasure or pain. I am aware only of their existence, and of people’s fears regarding them. I know… _about_ the physical world enough to have this… body. But the nature of physical reality itself, how to experience it directly, I cannot know alone. That is why I want your help.”

“This has got to be the weirdest way I’ve ever been propositioned,” muttered Tim. “Top five, at least. Okay, well,” he reached out and stroked Michael’s hair, “I guess we’re doing this.”

Michael glanced over at Tim’s hand, entangling itself in blond curls, then back at his face. He was closer now, his eyes inviting, and Michael accepted, bridging the distance as it had seen Tim’s past companions do.

They kissed softly at first. Tim parted his lips and brought them down gently upon Michael’s. Michael repeated the gesture, undulating its lips in time. Apart, then together. Then two more times, twice as fast. Then four more kisses, four times as fast as the first. And again, eight more, at eight times the speed…

“Um, Michael,” said Tim, face still locked in with the entity, “what are you doing?”

“Sex,” it said, continuing to kiss in its precise pattern. “This is how I’ve seen your other companions do it.” Tim pulled away.

“I’m going to gloss over the fact that you’ve been spying on me,” he said, “as I’m apparently numb to that sort of thing at this point. But Michael, there’s more to kissing than just patterned lip movements. You’re getting to know someone. You’re communicating how you feel about what’s happening.”

“Getting to know them?” Michael looked confused. “How?”

“Explore their mouth. Use your lips and tongue to get to know the shape of them. See which parts they like you to touch.” He had a sudden idea. “You know your corridors? When your mouth and my mouth join, it’s like a new corridor. And we want to find each other.”

“Find you… in the corridors… Oh!” Michael lunged forward. Suddenly, Tim’s head was reeling. He was kissing, but there were too many dimensions inside him. His tongue was still in his mouth, he knew it was, it must have been, but it was… lost, somehow. Somewhere in his mouth, but not all in one place. The harder he tried to find it, the further away inside him it was. Was that even his tongue? Was that Michael’s tongue that was everywhere and nowhere in his mouth? His own tongue was scattered, lost somewhere to Michael’s being, where thousands of its lips kissed his own into tens of thousands.

“Wait,” he tried to say, but with his lips and tongue in so many unknowable places, it was impossible. He tapped his hand frantically on Michael’s shoulder until the entity pulled away.

“Is kissing over?” Michael asked. Tim took a minute to regain understanding of the topology of his own mouth before answering.

“No, kissing isn’t over,” he said. “But I take back what I said about the corridors. Kissing is _not_ like corridors.” He thought for a moment. “Here, how about this? I’ll kiss you, and when I do something you like, you do that back to me. I know you said you don’t know physical pleasure, but surely you have an idea of when you enjoy what’s happening around you.”

Michael nodded, sagely. “Perception of pleasure,” it said.

“Sure. Just promise me you’ll tell me if you don’t like something, okay? This is supposed to be fun. And no more corridors.” Michael nodded again.

Tim began this kiss like the first one. Michael waited, the hint of a smile on its face. Tim ran his tongue along its bottom lip, then nipped, gently. There was no sharp intake of breath as might be expected with a human partner, but the Distortion made a satisfied sort of sound and sank its teeth into him.

“Figures it would be into that,” thought Tim, rolling his eyes. His kisses grew rougher. He leaned into Michael and grabbed fistfuls of ever-curling hair. Michael wrapped its long fingers around Tim’s waist and pulled him into its lap. They kissed each other furiously, hands running down one another’s backs, leaving scratch marks through their clothes.

Well, almost.

“What the hell is happening?”

Tim’s hand was caught in Michael’s sweater, but not caught the way one might snag a fingernail on a loose knit. The hand had gone through the sweater as though it were water, but it was also still resting atop Michael’s fully-clothed body. Tim yanked his hand out of this impossible position and rubbed it, staring at Michael, who shrugged.

“I wanted you closer to me” it said. “I don’t know why, but I did. So I let you in a layer closer.”

Tim blushed.

“That’s… actually really sweet, Michael. You know, at that point, people usually take off each other’s clothes.”

“You didn’t,” said Michael, gesturing at Tim’s back.

“I…what?!” Tim reached around and felt the back of his shirt. It was torn to shreds. His back was covered in long scratches, a few of which were bleeding gently.

“Okay,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt. “I think it’s time we relocate to the bedroom.” He stood up as he shrugged off the remains of the garment. and he couldn’t help but feel flattered by Michael’s staring. He offered the Distortion a hand to get up off the sofa, when a very important thought occurred to him.

“Just so we’re clear, the clothes are the last layer to come off. If you want to feel closer after that, there are things that we can do, but I don’t want you peeling off my skin or absorbing me into yours. Agreed?”

“Yes,” said Michael. “I understand the boundary of skin on bodies. Sasha was upset when I reached through hers to pull out a worm. What I don’t understand… are the boundaries of myself.”

“What do you mean?” asked Tim, leading Michael to his bedroom.

“I mean… all of this is mine… is me, insofar as I am a body. I have it to use, and to be perceived, but the being and perception are only what I have found use for so far.”

“Meaning, you can’t take those clothes off?”

“I… can take them off. But I do not know… what is underneath. I have never needed to be anything underneath…. Let me show you.” Michael stripped off his clothes and tossed them onto Tim’s bed.

Michael had a body, in that the now-discarded clothes had sat and moved atop something. Its head, hands, and feet were connected by a neck, shoulders, torso, and limbs, but it was not a human body. “Occupied space” was the best way Tim could describe it. How it was occupied was uncertain. It was a human-shaped body, but the edges were ill-defined, and the interior shifted and twisted under his gaze. It was mesmerizing.

Drawn in without thinking, Tim pressed his hand to Michael’s torso. It was surprisingly warm.

“I think we can work with this,” Tim murmured, still entranced. The boundary between their bodies was unclear, like an image on a screen plagued by static, and it hurt, physically, if he thought too much about it. But when Michael kissed him, humming an indecipherable tune, the sensation softened, and Tim’s mind could easily process the whole experience as though Michael were a human partner with a carpet of soft chest hair. He ran his hands down the expanse of Michael’s torso and between its legs and found… nothing.

“Hey, Michael? Not to be insensitive, but you seem kind of… undefined down here.” Tim caressed the occupied space where legs met torso.

“I am undefined everywhere,” the Distortion corrected, “However, I can refine my existence and the perceptions thereof. What kind of definition is needed for sex?”

“Well, most humans have some configuration of holes, and some have a part to stick into another human’s hole,” Tim explained. Michael wavered.

“A… part to stick… or….”

“A hole. An opening.”

“A… door?”

“No!” Tim blanched at the idea of his penis being trapped in an endless fractal hallway and tried to purge it from his mind. “Tell you what, how about I provide the hole? You just make a cock to put in it. Sound good?”

“Whether it sounds is of secondary relevance to my lack of understanding. I am unfamiliar with this… thing I am to make.” The Distortion pondered for a moment. “Can you show me?”

Tim smirked.

“I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
